Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Anyone else think Commander Kira is a complete monster?

[Redd the Sock]

Well in the pragmatic sense, the Bajorians were poor, desperate, and had to made do with what they could steal, so delicacy wasn't something they could easily pull off, whereas that Cardassian's attacks in the episode could be more precise due to time and resources.

As for the ethics of her actions, yeah, she's a character that would never be created post 9/11, but then, the Bajorian situation was supposed to be extreme. She's known no life for her people but the occupation, which may as well have been slavery. Hell, her parents didn't know a life without it. This leads to a lot less of the idea of "innocent bystanders" because the people there saw the situation for their whole lives and did nothing. She didn't see innocents. she saw people benefiting for the dead Bajorians in the work camps and never seemed to be bending over backwards to do anything about it. There's also a tactical thing as she'll mention in a late episode (sorry for the minor spoiler) that if you prove to your enemy that there are people you won't kill to get at them, they will place those people at every important place just to keep you from attacking. She undoubtedly has a lot of innocent bajorian blood on her hands as well.

Kira was honestly one of the more interesting characters in how we saw her change from someone very certain in the rights and wrongs of the galaxy and the occupation, only to have to confront doubts about it.

 

[Gennadios]

Oh and you know, what good does slaughtering civilians? Yeah kill the file clerk's daughter. That'll get him to pack up and leave.

It worked for the Afghans against the Soviets. The trick isn't to outright kill them, just maim them so that they get sent home and become a burden to their own society. Force the occupying side to develop it's own misgivings about the occupation.

Probably not in tune with the Roddenberry Ideal, but honestly alot of what he wanted Trek to be was kind Utopian nonesense, nothing in nature acts how he'd like it to.

I never really saw much of an issue, when you have no standing military but still have the will to fight, asymmetric warfare becomes the standard.

 

[Ravenbom]

I think it was more poor writing, especially early on, to make her such a fanatic.
Frankly, she doesn't ease off that one note very much either.
I think, in general, there's just a lot of shit writing for female characters in Star Trek. Even when we had a female Captain in Janeway I felt that she was simply shepherding the plot along for all the other characters. I didn't even like that show and I know 10 times more about the other characters than I know about Janeway.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

No, she's not a complete monster and you're wrong.

You're going at this with COMPLETELY the wrong attitude to analyse a series as nuanced and well-written as DS9. You're looking at it in black-and-white- Kira and her compatriots sometimes killed "innocent" Cardassians in their resistance efforts, she won't admit she's sorry when a revenge-motivated serial killer calls her on it and that makes her EEEEEEEEEVIL to the core. Wrong. DS9 is not a series of black and white, it's made of shades of grey. You say you're only up to 'By Inferno's Light'; well let me warn you (without spoilers) that if 'The Darkness and the Light' bothers you now, the rest of the series is going to give you a coronary. Have you ever heard, even in passing, of an episode called 'In the Pale Moonlight'? Yeah, you're going to need to loosen up your rigid worldview a bit to make it through this series.

Seriously, Kira is a "complete monster"? Did you somehow skip 'Duet'? (I doubt it, it's considered one of the top 5 finest episodes of the show and easily the best episode of the 1st season.) You should look up the generally accepted narrative definition of "Complete Monster" [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompleteMonster]. Kira is a deep and nuanced character with a lot of shades of grey in her and a lot of dark in her backstory that she often struggles with. 'The Darkness and the Light' may not have been her most subtle moment, but you're not looking at it from her perspective- this guy has been tracking down and murdering her old friends and rubbing it in her face, making her terrified for her life as he's basically promising to find her and murder her too. When Silarin Prin monologues to Kira about how morally superior he is to not get innocents caught up in his revenge, you shouldn't expect her to be impressed by his conscientiousness or sympathise with what happened to him- she hates this guy! To her he's another smug, self-righteous Cardassian making excuses for the horrors the Cardassians inflicted on the Bajoran people for decades by whining that "well I didn't do any of it!" and trying to make her feel bad for fighting to free her people. Fifteen-million Bajorans died in the Occupation, including Kira's own father, and she never got to see her mother again after she was taken away (at least until 'Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night' in season 6, ANOTHER incredibly grey and complicated Kira episode). Yes, you the viewer can accept that Prin makes some points worth considering and he's not a one-note monster himself. No, you should NOT just write off Kira for not seeing it his way and being sorry for what she did, especially towards this clearly half-loopy guy who's going to kill her even if she apologises.

Kira had some really dark moments in the series- this is one of them, but there was also 'Necessary Evil' where Odo found out that she'd once committed the murder of a Bajoran collaborator and gotten away with it under his nose. But this is what her character is like. You can't just expect her to break down and admit she's been wrong about the things she was so committed to when she was growing up just because you don't agree with her. She's a character in a TV series, not a game character under your control; having her bend here would completely undermine her.

In short, you're being WAY too black-and-white about this. Give it a rethink. DS9 is arguably the BEST Star Trek series of all, largely thanks to its superlative writing and characters, and you have a LONG way to go yet...

 

[MoltenSilver]

The fact of the matter was this, and to paraphrase Kira herself "As soon as they realize you won't attack civilian targets, there will be civilians held hostage on every outpost. If you won't attack them, you might as well roll over right now". Cross that with the fact the Bajorans were fighting off a genocide and the only people who even had meaningful sympathy for the Bajorans (Starfleet) were sitting on their asses countless light-years away occasionally tossing a mean word the Cardassians' way, there was 0 help coming, 0 alternative solutions, it was literally kill civilians both Bajoran and Cardassians, or give up and die. So, I at least, am not going to call Kira a monster for taking the only option on the table.

As for how she's different from Dukat:
Kira was fighting for her literal survival, as I've already covered above
Dukat believes down to the very core of his being in, for lack of a better term, 'Manifest Destiny'. He believes with every fiber of his being that Cardassians DESERVE to dominate everything in their view, and is completely uncaring about the cost of this destiny to non-cardassians. Saying Kira and the Resistance are monsters for harming civilians is like saying the Allies should've just let the Nazi's be because think of all the poor German civilians (who many would argue through silence are complicit anyways) who might get killed if the Allies were to attack. Best to just let them carry on exterminating the Jewish and Gypsy and Handicapped and everyone else on the shit list right?

 

[Thaluikhain]

What you have to understand is Kira and the rest of the resistance were fighting for the very survival of their species. What the Cardassians where doing was worse that a Holocaust, it was genocide. The Bajorans starved, where worked to death, used as sex slaves, and experimented on.

Er, not seeing how that was worse than the Holocause, and IIRC, the Bajorans weren't being genocided, they were "merely" slaves.

Cardassia like Nazi Germany there very few innocents, the policies enjoyed widespread public support and no one could be under any illusions about what those policies are.

I'm sorry, what WHAT?! Did you skip history class when the interwar and second world war was covered? I'm sorry, but this is flat out wrong on every level. Even at its peak in popularity the Nazis never had over 40% support, and that was before they started opening deathcamps and invading their neighbors. The reason there was less dissent on the policies wasn't due to the people accepting it, it was due to fear that the gestapo or the SS would come knocking at your door if you even talked about it the wrong way. I know it's from a cheesy movie, but the phrase "The first country the Nazis invaded was their own" is true in every sense. Your view on what the country was is but a fiction.

Going to disagree with both of you there. The German populace didn't know exactly what was going on, they knew various groups that they didn't like were going off somewhere, but didn't care to know the details.

The SS wasn't that much of a concern for most, people who are just trying to run their every day lives. Once wars start, people tend to be too upset with the enemy than the government fighting that enemy.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

You have to keep two things in mind. First, the writing on that show was incredibly hit or miss. I loved it but even the plot of the first episode made almost no sense. "The Bejorans fought off the Cardassian military which fled in disgrace. Oh wait, they're back as though nothing happened? What?!" The other is that their writing for individual characters was normally quite good. She has a VERY long story arc. She goes from an angry partisan who hates more or less everyone in her way, to being a well adjusted if severely emotionally scarred woman. She has come to terms with her past and has found her place in a society that will not have completely rebuilt itself in her lifetime.

One of my favorite episodes of the show was the one where she was kidnapped by Cardassian intelligence to confuse on old man into thinking that she is his daughter. By the end of the episode she has started to rethink her life a bit as well as becoming friends with the old man who is in a similar position to her. He is at all times surrounded by other people yet completely alone. He is a Cardassian and She a Bejoran but they get over it. It also involved Garak and any episode with him in it was worth watching!

 

[wizzy555]

Also where the hell was all this halocaust shit on Bajor during THE NEXT GENERATION?

You mean to tell me space genocide was going on but Ro was able to escape and join Starfleet?

Trekkies, I don't wish to mock the lore but none of this shit is making sense

It makes perfect sense, you are just assuming that starfleet is both aware and cares about all the atrocities going on around them. And if indeed Bajor was not warp capable (debatable) the prime directive made them invisible to starfleet.

The next generation was all about how diplomacy and non-interference are great and enlightened. Gene Rodenberry wanted to portray this way of life as perfect and without flaw, when he died it left the other producers to show the downsides.

DS9 reveals the moral ambiguity and complications that went with all that. You are not always suppose to accept and love the "heroes".

 

[Arctic Werewolf]

The moral ambiguity is a source of drama in Deep Space 9. It is supposed to make you question your attachment to the characters and their role in the story. It is supposed to make you uncomfortable. It is supposed to make you ponder questions about what is made permissible by military expediency. Is Kira really a hero, or is she a villain? It all makes for good drama. I actually like Kira more because of this tension. To answer your question directly: Kind of. Arguably. Yes. No. What do you think?

Kira: "Was that necessary?!"
Gul Dukat: "You're the terrorist. You tell me."

You should read the Dune novels. Well, the first 3. And I'm more worried about the Intendant.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What you have to understand is Kira and the rest of the resistance were fighting for the very survival of their species. What the Cardassians where doing was worse that a Holocaust, it was genocide. The Bajorans starved, where worked to death, used as sex slaves, and experimented on.

Er, not seeing how that was worse than the Holocause, and IIRC, the Bajorans weren't being genocided, they were "merely" slaves.

Actually one of the episodes centers around a camp that is basically space-auschwitz. They make it pretty clear how bad it was during that episode. Plus Dukat himself mentions that they took measures like murdering hundreds of bajorans(who was likely innocent as they were picked at random and/or from a pool of 'suspected' 'terrorists') over various acts they deemed terrorism. There's also how they treated their slaves which isn't too far off from how people were treated in the nazi camps.

Oh sure...in Voyager they also had a pop culture Mengele. I saw pop culture, in that Mengele didn't do any real research, her was just torturing people, but the commonly held belief was that he'd done some science on prisoners like the Japanese did.

It'll be some time before brutal occupations aren't depicted as being Nazi-like. My point was that the Nazis also did Nazi like atrocities.

 

[Zipa]

I'm at the point in the series where Gol Ducat just betrayed everyone and sided Cardassia with the Dominion, so please no spoilers?

Maybe this is my post 9/11 pov, but freedom fighter or not, Kira and her band of Bajorans were terrorist. They didn't just attack/kill the politicians and rules occupying their planet but those people's familys, or hell anyone that was just your blue collar cardassian trying to make ends meet.

And what's disgusting is, she gets called on it. She gets kidnapped by this one Cardassian, who was disfigured in one of the bombs she set off that killed a LOT of innocent Cardassians. I mean these were people that had NO CONTROL over the occupation of Bajor.

And Kira's response is basically she doesn't give a fuck about them and she felt they were using their innocence as a shield.

And this is the person Sisko choose as his 2nd in command? This ***** deserves to be no where near starfleet. She's going to stand to have the nerve to call Ducat a monster thinking it completely justifies what she did?

Look, I know the cardassian occupation of Bajor was basically their Halocaust, but the moment you start hurting innocent people go fuck yourself, you have no moral high ground. "This was war!" >.> at least the Klingon's kill non-combatants because it fits their f'ed up sense of honor. The service working Cardassian's didn't deserve to die.

Wouldn't you do the same if it was Earth in the same situation as Bajor? I doubt you would care that a civilian Cardassian would be hurt were humanity in the situation the Bajorians were in during the occupation. Every Cardassian would be the enemy.

Its easy to condemn them for killing innocents when its not your family being worked/beaten/abused to death by an oppressive invading force that is only out to remove your worlds resources. Funnily enough its the sort of position Starfleet tends to take, judge and condemn safe and afar from their utopia. Sisko sums it up himself best in an episode focusing on the Maquis [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crpUHa9_pJ0#t=112] Plus Starfleet and the Federation never had much to fear from the Cardassians, their ships were always shown as inferior in almost every way to Starfleets, heck in the first episode of DS9 three Galor class cruisers won't tangle with the Enterprise.

Ultimately the whole premise of DS9 was to make you uncomfortable, to show the darker side of the utopia that Gene Rodenberry dreamed up, while it may of been paradise on and around Earth and the core of the Federation it most definitely was not out on the frontier like Bajor. Personally I think the characters were more interesting for it to, they had a lot more character than some of the other Trek show characters as they actually showed them as multi faceted rather than one dimensional.

Also just a side note, Sisko didn't choose Major Kira as a second in command, she was assigned to DS9 by the Bajorian provisional Government as a liaison between them and Starfleet.

 

[Zontar]

What you have to understand is Kira and the rest of the resistance were fighting for the very survival of their species. What the Cardassians where doing was worse that a Holocaust, it was genocide. The Bajorans starved, where worked to death, used as sex slaves, and experimented on.

Er, not seeing how that was worse than the Holocause, and IIRC, the Bajorans weren't being genocided, they were "merely" slaves.

Actually one of the episodes centers around a camp that is basically space-auschwitz. They make it pretty clear how bad it was during that episode. Plus Dukat himself mentions that they took measures like murdering hundreds of bajorans(who was likely innocent as they were picked at random and/or from a pool of 'suspected' 'terrorists') over various acts they deemed terrorism. There's also how they treated their slaves which isn't too far off from how people were treated in the nazi camps.

Oh sure...in Voyager they also had a pop culture Mengele. I saw pop culture, in that Mengele didn't do any real research, her was just torturing people, but the commonly held belief was that he'd done some science on prisoners like the Japanese did.

It'll be some time before brutal occupations aren't depicted as being Nazi-like. My point was that the Nazis also did Nazi like atrocities.

I don't think his character was that far, in that episode it was implied that his work actually did have research which lead to actual results which lead to actual scientific knowledge. Seems to continue with the Nazi paralells, given Unit 731 lead to absolutely nothing of scientific value, while Nazi Germany's experiments, though despicable, did lead to research that has been applied in ways today in ways which save lives (the current fundamentals behind life vests is based on such research, for example. The man who used the research to improve life vests even used a similar justification to what the Doctor did when brought before a government inquiry, that the knowledge was already there, and that nothing they could do would bring back those who where lost, but using it to save lives was a justifiably use of it).

 

[Thaluikhain]

I don't think his character was that far, in that episode it was implied that his work actually did have research which lead to actual results which lead to actual scientific knowledge. Seems to continue with the Nazi paralells, given Unit 731 lead to absolutely nothing of scientific value, while Nazi Germany's experiments, though despicable, did lead to research that has been applied in ways today in ways which save lives (the current fundamentals behind life vests is based on such research, for example. The man who used the research to improve life vests even used a similar justification to what the Doctor did when brought before a government inquiry, that the knowledge was already there, and that nothing they could do would bring back those who where lost, but using it to save lives was a justifiably use of it).

Hey? I thought Unit 731 produced enough useful results to get immunity from the US, while Mengele at least was merely torturing people (can't say for the rest of the Nazis, though).

 

[JimB]

Maybe this is my post-9/11 POV, but freedom fighter or not, Kira and her band of Bajorans were terrorists.

Yes, they were. I take it that you think terrorism is never never justified? If so, I would be interested to know how you expect an enslaved people to fight back against their militarily superior oppressors.

They didn't just attack/kill the politicians and rules occupying their planet but those people's families, or hell, anyone that was just your blue collar Cardassian trying to make ends meet.

That is regrettable, and maybe even evil. Since I don't remember the details of any specific instances, I can't say. I can only say that, in general terms, those Cardassians were as much the enemy as, say, the blue pills from the Matrix. They were contributing to the oppression of the Bajorans by profiting from their enslavement, and if, as you say, those people were forced there by the Cardassian government and had no choice, well, it wasn't the Bajorans' choice to involve them in that war, was it? It was the Cardassians who put them there.

And this is the person Sisko choose as his second-in-command?

Did he choose her? It was my memory that she was appointed by the provisional Bajoran government as a condition of allowing Starfleet to administrate the station.

Look, I know the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was basically their Holocaust, but the moment you start hurting innocent people, go fuck yourself, you have no moral high ground.

Did Kira ever claim she had a moral high ground? I don't recall her ever saying so, just that she did what she had to do to liberate her people.

The reason there was less dissent on the policies wasn't due to the people accepting it, it was due to fear that the Gestapo or the SS would come knocking at your door if you even talked about it the wrong way.

As I recall it, the Cardassians also had secret police who would make people vanish for saying the wrong things, so I think the analogy still stands. I'm also not sure if the difference between honest support and support out of fear matters; if you are not arguing against an objectionable policy, then in what meaningful way are you not supporting it?

 

[Zontar]

Hey? I thought Unit 731 produced enough useful results to get immunity from the US, while Mengele at least was merely torturing people (can't say for the rest of the Nazis, though).

Nope, Unit 731 got nothing of value, but the immunity came from the fear the US had that there was something of value that, if they didn't grant immunity, would fall into Soviet hands. Probably one of the biggest miscalculations of the war (though the president set by the Nazis may have influenced the decision).

I can't speak for Mengele specifically since my knowledge is of the general experiments that where done at the camps, but there was some (albeit little) scientific value that came as a result.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

mind you all to say she's a COMPLETE MONSTER is a hyperbole on my part but I still find her position fucked up and unforgivable.

Maybe this is my post-9/11 POV, but freedom fighter or not, Kira and her band of Bajorans were terrorists.

Yes, they were. I take it that you think terrorism is never never justified? If so, I would be interested to know how you expect an enslaved people to fight back against their militarily superior oppressors.

They didn't just attack/kill the politicians and rules occupying their planet but those people's families, or hell, anyone that was just your blue collar Cardassian trying to make ends meet.

That is regrettable, and maybe even evil. Since I don't remember the details of any specific instances, I can't say. I can only say that, in general terms, those Cardassians were as much the enemy as, say, the blue pills from the Matrix. They were contributing to the oppression of the Bajorans by profiting from their enslavement, and if, as you say, those people were forced there by the Cardassian government and had no choice, well, it wasn't the Bajorans' choice to involve them in that war, was it? It was the Cardassians who put them there.

And this is the person Sisko choose as his second-in-command?

Did he choose her? It was my memory that she was appointed by the provisional Bajoran government as a condition of allowing Starfleet to administrate the station.

Look, I know the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was basically their Holocaust, but the moment you start hurting innocent people, go fuck yourself, you have no moral high ground.

Did Kira ever claim she had a moral high ground? I don't recall her ever saying so, just that she did what she had to do to liberate her people.

The reason there was less dissent on the policies wasn't due to the people accepting it, it was due to fear that the Gestapo or the SS would come knocking at your door if you even talked about it the wrong way.

As I recall it, the Cardassians also had secret police who would make people vanish for saying the wrong things, so I think the analogy still stands. I'm also not sure if the difference between honest support and support out of fear matters; if you are not arguing against an objectionable policy, then in what meaningful way are you not supporting it?

Dukat was always going on with the "we're not so different.." Crap. So yeah, she always maintained what she did was just.

And no, I don't think terrorism against CIVILIANS is ever acceptable. I understand sometimes one has to do bad things, as much as I abhor murder and violence but non-government officials? Non combatants? No, I draw a line there.

My problem with Kira is that in that episode she sees first hand how her actions fucked up that poor guys life, and she is completed unrepentant. This guys whole side of his body is fucked up, all his friends were needlessly murdered, and she bassically acts like he should of just moved on from that. I'd feel differently if she showed even an ounce of compassion, and don't tell me that's impossible since we've seen her be with other cardassion's before (remember the guy posing as the head of the labor camp?)

And I understand the writing of the show, but ever since that episode I look at Kira and I think of those reporters getting beheaded in the Middle East. Ugh I still have to deal with them shipping her with my guy Odo.

 

[happyninja42]

Ah that episode. Yeah I'll admit the way Kira spoke to the Carrdassian kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I think the episode was going for the end justifies the means/ collateral damage line of reasoning, but the way her words came out it sound like she thought the innocent Cardassians deserved to die that hey got what was coming to them. It's kinda jarring considering it seems to go against the message in "The Duet" from season 1.

I don't know maybe it as just an error on the writers part or maybe Kira didn't want to give the Cardassian the satisfaction of seeing her show regret over her past actions. or maybe I'm just remembering things wrong.

Overall though I don't think she is a monster.

I think some of that might be due to the actress. She could be...odd at times when she delivered lines. Her emotional range was sort of sketchy at best, so I think sometimes when she was maybe trying to convey "Emotionally unsettled by what someone is saying about my past" it came across visually and audibly as "Cold and uncaring". She seemed to be best in her element when she was doing snarky sarcasm and comedy quips, mixed in with serious-business woman. When she was tasked with acting upset, or angry, or grief stricken, I think she went too far out of her comfort zone to properly convey the emotion, which causes mis-interpretation of what she was was portraying.


And no, Kira isn't a monster, but she's not a saint either. She grew up in a subjugated society, under the tyrannical rule of a race that were perfectly ok with killing her people off in the most casual manner possible. She did what she had to in order to survive, and to try and push the Cardassians off her planet. Some of it was ugly, dirty work, but she lived in a reality of kill or be killed for much of her existence. So yeah, she did some terrible things, but terrible things were done to her and her people too.

And no, I don't think terrorism against CIVILIANS is ever acceptable. I understand sometimes one has to do bad things, as much as I abhor murder and violence but non-government officials? Non combatants? No, I draw a line there.

Easy to hold that moral line when you're holding it from a comfortable, non threatened position. But grow up in an occupied world, where the females of your species are consistently raped to breed more workers, your brothers and sisters are beaten and murdered for
the most casual of reasons, or no reason at all, and lets see how easy it is to hold the moral high ground of "no civilians". We can play the high and mighty card all day from our comfy lives, but it's harder to keep that position when you are fighting for the very existence of your entire race.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Ah that episode. Yeah I'll admit the way Kira spoke to the Carrdassian kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I think the episode was going for the end justifies the means/ collateral damage line of reasoning, but the way her words came out it sound like she thought the innocent Cardassians deserved to die that hey got what was coming to them. It's kinda jarring considering it seems to go against the message in "The Duet" from season 1.

I don't know maybe it as just an error on the writers part or maybe Kira didn't want to give the Cardassian the satisfaction of seeing her show regret over her past actions. or maybe I'm just remembering things wrong.

Overall though I don't think she is a monster.

I think some of that might be due to the actress. She could be...odd at times when she delivered lines. Her emotional range was sort of sketchy at best, so I think sometimes when she was maybe trying to convey "Emotionally unsettled by what someone is saying about my past" it came across visually and audibly as "Cold and uncaring". She seemed to be best in her element when she was doing snarky sarcasm and comedy quips, mixed in with serious-business woman. When she was tasked with acting upset, or angry, or grief stricken, I think she went too far out of her comfort zone to properly convey the emotion, which causes mis-interpretation of what she was was portraying.


And no, Kira isn't a monster, but she's not a saint either. She grew up in a subjugated society, under the tyrannical rule of a race that were perfectly ok with killing her people off in the most casual manner possible. She did what she had to in order to survive, and to try and push the Cardassians off her planet. Some of it was ugly, dirty work, but she lived in a reality of kill or be killed for much of her existence. So yeah, she did some terrible things, but terrible things were done to her and her people too.

And no, I don't think terrorism against CIVILIANS is ever acceptable. I understand sometimes one has to do bad things, as much as I abhor murder and violence but non-government officials? Non combatants? No, I draw a line there.

Easy to hold that moral line when you're holding it from a comfortable, non threatened position. But grow up in an occupied world, where the females of your species are consistently raped to breed more workers, your brothers and sisters are beaten and murdered for
the most casual of reasons, or no reason at all, and lets see how easy it is to hold the moral high ground of "no civilians". We can play the high and mighty card all day from our comfy lives, but it's harder to keep that position when you are fighting for the very existence of your entire race.

I'm not condemning her for doing it, I understand it. What angers me is that after going through all that, that she's okay with it.

I'm sorry, but even in War time, if one ever feels okay/good about killing civilians that is a sign one is really mentally fucked up.

 

[MoltenSilver]

Spoiler

Ah that episode. Yeah I'll admit the way Kira spoke to the Carrdassian kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I think the episode was going for the end justifies the means/ collateral damage line of reasoning, but the way her words came out it sound like she thought the innocent Cardassians deserved to die that hey got what was coming to them. It's kinda jarring considering it seems to go against the message in "The Duet" from season 1.

I don't know maybe it as just an error on the writers part or maybe Kira didn't want to give the Cardassian the satisfaction of seeing her show regret over her past actions. or maybe I'm just remembering things wrong.

Overall though I don't think she is a monster.

I think some of that might be due to the actress. She could be...odd at times when she delivered lines. Her emotional range was sort of sketchy at best, so I think sometimes when she was maybe trying to convey "Emotionally unsettled by what someone is saying about my past" it came across visually and audibly as "Cold and uncaring". She seemed to be best in her element when she was doing snarky sarcasm and comedy quips, mixed in with serious-business woman. When she was tasked with acting upset, or angry, or grief stricken, I think she went too far out of her comfort zone to properly convey the emotion, which causes mis-interpretation of what she was was portraying.


And no, Kira isn't a monster, but she's not a saint either. She grew up in a subjugated society, under the tyrannical rule of a race that were perfectly ok with killing her people off in the most casual manner possible. She did what she had to in order to survive, and to try and push the Cardassians off her planet. Some of it was ugly, dirty work, but she lived in a reality of kill or be killed for much of her existence. So yeah, she did some terrible things, but terrible things were done to her and her people too.

And no, I don't think terrorism against CIVILIANS is ever acceptable. I understand sometimes one has to do bad things, as much as I abhor murder and violence but non-government officials? Non combatants? No, I draw a line there.

Easy to hold that moral line when you're holding it from a comfortable, non threatened position. But grow up in an occupied world, where the females of your species are consistently raped to breed more workers, your brothers and sisters are beaten and murdered for
the most casual of reasons, or no reason at all, and lets see how easy it is to hold the moral high ground of "no civilians". We can play the high and mighty card all day from our comfy lives, but it's harder to keep that position when you are fighting for the very existence of your entire race.

I'm not condemning her for doing it, I understand it. What angers me is that after going through all that, that she's okay with it.

I'm sorry, but even in War time, if one ever feels okay/good about killing civilians that is a sign one is really mentally fucked up.

There are two different interpretations of your comments in my head and I'm not sure which is right, so I'm going to address them both and you can ignore the one that doesn't pertain to what you're communicating.

For moral high ground, I have to disagree; if I was running the occupation (under the assumption if I'm in that position I'm a pitiless sociopath in this scenario) at the first sign of terrorist resistance I'd round up hundreds of civilians and just keep them crowded around every meaningful target. And sorry for tiny spoilers, but season 7 episodes make it point-blank clear the Cardassians did this, which as far as I'm concerned makes the Cardassians guilty for their deaths, not Kira.

If this is an issue of Kira's personal post-war reflections on her actions, then define 'feels okay/good' about killing civilians. Gul Darheel (Or at least in the eyes of Maritza) felt good about killing innocents. I sincerely doubt from her actions and words that Kira actively reveled in butchering people and gets warm fuzzy feelings from imagining scores of dead civilians before her feet. Some people in the thread have raised issues with Kira's consistency in portrayal regarding her feelings with Cardassians, learning 'not all of them are evil' one time then slipping right back to full-blown racist remarks later, but I actually don't think that's inconsistent: lets say nation A invaded my home nation of B and it pretty much went the same way as the Bajoran Occupation. Even if afterwards I met countless A's who were decent people I'm pretty sure there would still be times when despite that I'd think 'Man fuck all those A's, history would've been better off if they all got killed by a meteor or something'. And if I was put in a situation of 'kill the human shields to hit the necessary target' I'd probably spend the rest of my life trying to justify it to keep my sanity, moral or not. Watching mother, father, brother, sister, friends taken by this conflict is not the kind of hate the vast majority of people could let go of. I find Kira's characterization to be very, for lack of a better term, human. So then, this comes down to a matter of whether Kira's a monster for not behaving and thinking more than could be expected for most humans. Personally I say its not unreasonable, much less monstrous, but I can't speak for your opinion on that matter.

Lastly, as for what separates Kira from Dukat, to paraphrase my prior post:
Kira was fighting for her literal survival, Dukat believes down to the very core of his being in, for lack of a better term, 'Manifest Destiny'. He believes with every fiber of his being that Cardassians DESERVE to dominate everything in their view, and is almost* completely uncaring about the cost of this destiny to non-cardassians. He believes that waging war and conquest on a galactic scale is his birthright and is never going to stop trying to achieve that goal. I haven't seen Kira actively trying to subjugate or murder every Cardassian she's met. She didn't even join the Maquis, and in fact actively helped sabotage them in "Defiant" despite their targets in that episode all being Cardassian. In short, when the occupation of Bajor was over Kira wanted the fighting to just stop. Dukat saw it as merely half-time.

*Dukat sees himself and Cardassians as some enlightened superior race that is obligated to seize control of an unruly galaxy and share that superiority in the same way daddy's belt does to unruly children. Except in this case daddy's belt is killing hundreds of people as a demonstration. He's not gleeful about killing like Darheel, but he still does see killing as his (for lack of a better term)divine-given right to achieve that destiny.

I'll put this in spoiler tags because it is a huge part of season 7 (it is a major, major spoiler), yet also can't be left out of the conversation:

Spoiler

In the series finale arc Kira, in the most literal meaning, saves the entire Cardassian species